Rochester Truck gathers supplies for Sandy victims

Wednesday

Nov 28, 2012 at 3:15 AMNov 28, 2012 at 3:30 PM

By Liz Markhlevskayalmark@fosters.com

ROCHESTER — With help from the community, a 24-foot-long box truck at Rochester Truck is quickly filling with clothes, food, and cleaning supplies to be donated to victims of Hurricane Sandy in December.

On Dec. 8, the truck filled with donated items will be driven to the Journey Baptist Church in New Jersey, where thousands of people are still seeking disaster relief.

Since last week, Rochester Truck has collected nonperishable food, hygiene items, cleaning supplies, clothes, toys, and many other items that will help those affected by Sandy.

“Everybody has just really opened up their hearts,” said Kevin Barry, who works in sales at Hino Trucks and will likely be the one driving the truck to New Jersey.

Being part of the project, he said, has been “really rewarding.”

Since reaching out to local businesses and organizations for donations, Barry said he was amazed at the amount and quality of items coming in — anything from bleach and push brooms, to blankets and shampoo.

Some of the items, he said, have been pleasantly unexpected. He said the Raymond Fire Department has contributed about 200 contact lenses to the project. A local business has also donated an Energizer display case filled with thousands of batteries.

Portsmouth Police Department also made a large contribution after holding its Turkey Bowl to help victims of Hurricane Sandy.

Jim Karpf, sales manager at Rochester Truck, said he hopes to transport one or more trucks filled of donations to Atlantic City, N.J.

Rochester Truck has also reached out to Red Cross with an offer to help.

Karpf said after having recently contacted Red Cross, staff at Rochester Truck were surprised to learn the disaster relief organization has stopped collecting donations for certain items, because of the difficulty to transporting the items to affected areas.

Rochester Truck is accepting monetary donations to Red Cross, and all checks for such donations should be made to Red Cross, said Karpf.

While the donation truck is filling, and the clothes are piling inside the truck from floor to ceiling, Rochester Truck is still looking for items that might be overlooked, such as toys and stuffed animals for children for the holidays.

According to FEMA, about 232,853 households, individuals, and business owners are currently seeking disaster assistance.